Accent I do not speak with

You know how some Malaysians say they get really annoyed when people around them 'speak (or at least try to speak) with an accent'?

They say Malaysians don't have accents and therefore should never speak like they own it. They accuse those who 'speak with an accent', saying that they do so just to sound cool and to be like Americans. But if you check a dictionary (I used Yahoo!'s), it defines accent as the relative prominence of a particular syllable of a word by greater intensity or by variation or modulation of pitch or tone. It is a person's unique way of pronouncing words, determined by the regional or social background of the speaker. It is determined by the phonetic habits of the speaker's native language carried over to his or her use of another language.

That means we Malaysians speak with an accent too. Just because you live in a country where most people speak like you, it does not mean that you do not have an accent. You are just too accustomed to the way Malaysians speak that you don't realize it. We think there are American accent, British accent, Russian accent and Indian accent. Guess what, the Malaysian accent is as much an accent as the others.

If we go the U.S. for a vacation, the people there will most probably think that we speak with a funny accent.

So people, next time you want to accuse people, please specify which country's accent they are trying to imitate.